


The Ecstasy Of Grief

by Val_Creative



Series: Kinktober/Whumptober/Goretober 2020 [25]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Blood, Dark, Dark Character, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Fever, Fighting Kink, Goretober, Graphic Description, Hallucinations, Hurt Buffy Summers, Illnesses, Internal Conflict, Kinktober, Kinktober 2020, Light Bondage, Possibly Unrequited Love, Restraints, Romance, Season/Series 02, Sexual Content, Sickfic, Underage - Freeform, Whump, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:40:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27199966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: During a patrol while sick, Buffy faces off against Angelus and loses. But he can’t make himself kill her.
Relationships: Angelus (BtVS)/Buffy Summers
Series: Kinktober/Whumptober/Goretober 2020 [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949473
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18
Collections: Kinktober 2020, Whumptober 2020





	The Ecstasy Of Grief

**Author's Note:**

> For all of my love of these two ngl I haven't tried writing Angelus and it was INTERESTING. I really hope you guys like this!

*

Buffy can't tell her mom everything like she wants. She can't risk her mom's life.

Joyce Summers eventually tunes out the very selective knowledge of Angel/Angelus given by everyone around her, focusing instead on her daughter feeling ill. As far as Buffy is aware, it seems like nearly half of Sunnydale High School caught this virus.

Xander and Willow cough between sentences while on the phone with Buffy. Giles narrowly escaped all of their germs.

(She has no idea how Cordelia is feeling or if she's going to classes. Not that it matters as much.)

Her mom tucks Buffy in, leaving her with a tall glass of water and a bowl of chicken soup. Buffy waits until she hears nothing coming from the hallway before dragging herself out of the covers. Patrolling can't wait. Neither can the Hellmouth's vampires.

Sniffles be damned.

*

It's definitely a high temperature. Buffy silently holds a palm to her forehead, quivering hard from the chills. Her joints ache.

She hunted one of Spike's cronies in the woods past Lovers' Lane. Her stake missed the heart by an inch, due to Buffy's blurred vision, but he ended up going over the cliff anyway and landed in a twisted, agonizingly screaming heap.

Buffy mumbles out something nonsensical. She shakes her head, widening and squint her eyes. Everything's still too out of focus. The vampire she left to rot now stands on the cliff's edge, whole and uninjured. He's not real, Buffy thinks dully. An oozing of blood shines against his grinning, yellowing fangs as he taunts her in Hank Summers's voice. Buffy's head throbs.

Retreating toward one of the dirt roads, Buffy groans, clutching her abdomen and wheezing out a series of deep, ugly coughs.

Greenish yellow mucus emerges between her lips. She spits it, flinching from the echoes of chest pain.

"You're not looking so hot, Buff…"

Angelus chuckles lowly. He rakes his eyes over her swaying on her own feet. Basking in the sight of an all-powerful Slayer looking chalk white and fatigued. Marveling in her misery. Sweatstains glare in patches through Buffy's old cheerleader hoodie.

His young, handsome face shifts into a vampiric sneer.

"Why don't you…" he raises a foot, slamming it into Buffy's core, " _relax_ …" Angelus quips, greedily witnessing as Buffy staggers upright, choking for air with her mouth gaping open, "let me handle things for a while… _take a_ _night off_ … s'not gonna kill you…"

Buffy's ears ring as Angelus uses his palm to crack her against the side of the face. Disorientation hazes her senses.

Looking up, she sees him as Buffy sees him in her nightmares. Undead like a zombie. Viscid rotting-black gore splats down his neck and cheeks. It seeps from the corners of his eyes glazed, wriggling with tiny, bloody maggots. Angelus' jaws shriveled up.

_ "This is pathetic…" _

*

She must be hallucinating. Angelus recognizes the odor of a saccharine-dark heat.

The fever on her.

He blocks her weak-aimed punch, spinning and knocking her back. Buffy's sneakers crust with mud. Angelus grabs into her bright blonde ponytail, yanking her forward, kneeing her in the chin with half of his full strength he would demonstrate.

It's not worth it. She's not worth _a damn thing_ to him.

Buffy's head snaps back. After a moment, she collapses with a pained whine, lying on the ground. "Gosh," Angelus drawls, crouching down and locking Buffy's head in his arms, "You really know how to ruin a good time, don't you?" He squeezes down on her throat, cutting off Buffy's oxygen and listening to her gulping and flailing before she slackens.  


"It's no fun killing you if you're not awake—no, wait—" Angelus muses, flashing another cruel, horrified grin, " _still having fun_ —"

He drifts his mouth to Buffy's pulse-point. Ready to tear her open, vein-by-vein. Drain her lifeless.

Angelus' features gradually smooth out from their vampiric profile.

_ No… _

_ Too easy… _

He's not gonna make it easy for her…

*

Drusilla and Spike already left the mansion.

She's probably taking him on a stroll— _a roll_ , Angelus corrects himself in an awful hilarity—through Crawford Street and towards Whiteoak Drive. They're probably finding stray cats and old little grannies as a late romantic snack. It makes him wanna gag.

The Factory burned down. Rupert Giles and his beloved Slayer made sure of that.

Everybody had to go somewhere in the local area. Angelus doesn't sleep so it's not a problem for him to wander. Spy on Buffy's friends. Continue to leave mysterious notes and gifts stenching of fresh death. He admits to enjoying Willow's horrified wails.

Buffy, unconscious and covered in mud, slumps up against the pale limestone wall. Her wrists manacled together above her.

Angelus considers his next move, pressing a knuckle to his lips and brooding. Killing the Slayer is the play that Spike insists on when asked. That's the goal. Of course it is, and Angelus doesn't disagree. Buffy will die _only_ when Angelus deems it so.

Until then, she's _his_.

To torment, to intimidate and fight. To fantasize about.

Buffy's soft moan pierces his interest.

She stirs. The manacles clang and clatter.

"Wakey wakey, lover," Angelus murmurs, smirking devilishly and hunching in front of her. "I told you it wouldn't kill you to get a nap in." There's only confused agitation in Buffy's expression and Angelus revels in before mounting back onto his feet.

Get her some water, and then—

In the middle of pouring, Angelus growls out. He steps away and chucks it at the wall, shattering glass. _What is he doing?_

"Angel," Buffy whispers, eyeing him in delirium like she hasn't got a clue.

There's a tremble of shortness in her breathing.

"Sorry, baby." Angelus stoops down, clutching her face with one hand and yanking her in. His non-vampiric teeth grit and expose in an overly feral snarl. She's warmer than he remembers her ever being. Sweat-slick. "You got the wrong guy."

He shouldn't have brought her here. It was a lapse of judgement.

Angelus looks at her and he's reminded of what that felt like—being mortal. Being _in love_ with a mortal. He's reminded of them buried in velvet and each other, kissing Buffy until her lips felt puffy, taking her, worshiping her nakedness and innocence.

She made him feel _good_.

That's the problem.

Angelus' fingers release her, stroking over Buffy's cheek thoughtfully. He imagines keeping her chained up, murdering her friends and family one-by-one, dumping their remains at Buffy's feet—or perhaps turning them into _something_ like Angelus. Making them his puppets of evil deeds and whims. Parading them in front of Buffy. Savoring her falling apart to the inevitability.

Or— _turning Buffy._

Killing her would be satisfying, but destroying Buffy completely _and destroying everything she stands for_ —that's what Angelus desires. He doesn't need another Drusilla, but a Slayer-turned-vampire would be a result of unbelievable potential. He imagines them, lurking in the shadows and feasting on all of those living in Sunnydale, widening up the Hellmouth for the mere pleasure.

Angelus wants her dripping in Giles' blood, roaming nude in the long, moonlit corridors. He wants her breasts crushed under him, when Angelus fucks her roughly, seizing Buffy's wrists together like the manacles do. He wants her— _that's the problem._

That's all it is.

"You got lucky this time," Angelus says, jeering.

He grabs the key for Buffy's ceiling-manacles, unlocking them, hoisting her into his arms and feeling her go unconscious again.

_ Pathetic. _

*

**Author's Note:**

> Kinktober 2020 prompt(s): **Bondage**  
>  Whumptober 2020 prompt(s): **Disorientation, Blurred Vision, Ringing Ears**  
>  Goretober 2020 prompt(s): **Hallucinations**


End file.
